دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی جلوگیری از خشونت علیه زنان و دختران در اردوگاه و پناهگاه های پناهندگان و آواره ها - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

In humanitarian crises, experiences of sexual and gender-based violence, primarily experienced by women and girls, are known to increase and intensify. There are current humanitarian crises across several regions of the world, and as many as 65 million displaced people. As such, there is an ongoing need to consider the role of energy interventions in addressing gendered violence in emergency contexts. Here I argue that although international humanitarian actors may advocate for them, technological energy interventions, including lighting, improved cookstoves and the provision of firewood, cannot prevent or solve the problem of violence against women or girls. By bringing the existing literature on energy interventions into conversation with the emerging literature on causes and prevention of sexual and gender-based violence, I highlight the limitations of a technical, universal intervention to gender-based violence in complex and traumatised social settings, each with their own local dynamics and gendered norms. Moreover, advocacy for such technical solutions makes both the particularity of gender in different sociocultural contexts, and other possible responses, invisible. Indeed, local contexts, and local responses must be considered the starting point for responding to gender-based violence, in which engaging with energy practices is at most one approach to prevent violence by engaging the broader context of trauma, poverty and gender in which it occurs.

3. Conclusion

It is well-established that men’s violence against women and girls increases in intensity and prevalence during humanitarian emergencies. However, in spite of claims made by policy-makers and multilateral development actors, existing energy literature suggests only a tenuous link between the prevention of violence against women and girls and the provision of energy in emergencies.

Energy, whether it be firewood, fuels or cookstoves, is not a solution to the prevalence of violence against women and girls during emergencies. Indeed, emerging feminist literature demonstrates such violence is driven by underlying gendered inequalities, masculinities and men’s own experiences of trauma, violence and poverty. Gender-based violence in refugee and displaced person camps is therefore complex and contextual, and irreducible to a single problem with a single solution.

Moreover, given the nature of the causes of violence against women and girls, grassroots and women’s organisations or feminist movements are better placed for the political and localised work of violence prevention than humanitarian or multilateral organisations. For such groups energy resources and technologies could be used as a vehicle to implement strategies to prevent violence. Such initiatives include involving men as security teams in fuel collection, or income generation projects based on alternative fuels or improved cookstoves. However, engaging with gender through energy-related practices may neither be relevant nor a priority for community-based organisations or feminist movements, and is at most one approach to prevent violence, which may only be relevant in particular contexts. Energy is therefore not a solution to preventing violence against women and girls in refugee or displaced person camp settings.